Internal market ‘unfinished business’, says Bolkestein

THE EU’s internal market chief, Frits Bolkestein, plans a fresh drive to boost the EU’s internal market to prepare it for enlargement and keep alive the Union’s flagging ambitions to be the world’s most competitive economy.

European Voice

1/8/03, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/12/14, 8:34 AM CET

He said the ten-year-old internal market – which allows free movement of goods and workers across the Union – had created 2.5 million extra jobs and boosted the incomes of EU households by an average €5,700.

But a decade on, he said too many barriers still exist – and the bigger European Union risks fragmentation and economic stagnation if they are allowed to stay.

He said his department would unveil an “ambitious” new strategy in April to tackle the remaining headaches, particularly in the services sector where countries have been most reluctant to lift domestic shackles on foreign workers or firms.

“All community institutions, member states, business and consumer organisations should throw their weight behind it…so that we may continue to reap the benefits of the internal market with more jobs and more growth,” he said.

Bolkestein and his fellow commissioners are responsible for more than 1,500 infringement cases concerning areas where member states have failed to respect the Unions’ internal market rulebook. One in ten of these cases ends up in the European Court of Justice.

But he warned that this figure is likely to balloon when ten new countries join the EU’s ranks in 2004.

He said existing barriers to the internal market would also “bite more strongly” and be “more difficult to remove” in a 25 member union.

“There is a real risk of fragmentation, if we don’t act decisively,” he added.

Bolkestein said the EU must “bite the bullet” to ensure vital reforms are implemented in areas such as energy, transport, public procurement and the controversial EU-wide patent system.

To fail, he said, would jeopardise any hope that Europe can rise to the top of the world economic ladder.

“The economic prize is immense – more prosperity for the citizens of an enlarged Europe. It is an illusion to think we can become the strongest economy in the world if we can’t make our internal market fire on all cylinders,” Bolkestein concluded.